"How did early humans build armies and followers? Why did one human look at another human and think, I think my life should revolve around serving this man's interests above mine?" Cerberus wondered as he wandered the streets. Like, did they really have to go ask and convince every single person to follow them?
The Spider was dealt with. He'd left a good word with Jimmy and paid him well, which in turn paid Cerberus well, along with the money he already took from the Spider to wander the city and have some fun.
"Excuse me, sir," Cerberus called out to a filthy, smelly homeless man who was pushing a shopping cart down the sidewalk.
"Yeah? What do you want?" the middle-aged man answered, stopping to look at the boy standing in front of him.
"I was wondering if you're interested in changing your life for the better?"
The man squinted. "How?"
"Well, I'm making an army," Cerberus explained.
"Army against who?"
"I haven't decided yet," Cerberus said. "But if you join, I can pay you."
"How much?"
"Twenty-five dollars a day," Cerberus said. "Plus whatever we loot from the corpses of our slain enemies."
The man didn't even hesitate. "In. I'm in."
"Well, that was easy," Cerberus said. "Now I just have to do it like a thousand more times and I will have an army. Say, homeless man, what's your name?"
"James," James said, wondering what kind of freak show he'd just stumbled into. But as long as he was getting paid, he wasn't about to ask questions.
"James, I'm Cerberus. As my first follower, you have the task of gathering one hundred men today."
James stared at him. "How am I supposed to gather a hundred men? I barely know nine and a half."
"I will pay you twenty-five dollars for each man you bring," Cerberus said. Money really did make things a lot easier. "Oh, and women and children don't count."
"Consider it done."
"Excellent," Cerberus said with a satisfied nod.
This was going much better than expected. He though it will be difficult, but so far the process had been remarkably straightforward.
"Now then," Cerberus continued, looking James up and down. "As my first follower, you cannot continue looking like this."
James blinked. "Like what?"
Cerberus waved a hand at the shopping cart, the stained jacket, the mismatched shoes, and the general look of homelessness surrounding the man. "Like... this."
James looked down at himself. "Fair."
"You represent my authority now," Cerberus explained. "If people see my first follower looking terrible, why would they join me?."
BOOM
BOOM
Erasmus and his father flew side by side. They had been flying for hours now in their wet suits after the sea burial. It hadn't been easy; Homelander's hand didn't let go.
Instead, he kept holding the corpse on the sea surface for hours, and after finally letting go, they started flying. Erasmus didn't say anything. He just flew beside his father.
But soon he could recognize the path or the desert they were taking, and developed a vague idea of where they were heading and what they were going to do.
Meanwhile, in the artificial town Ryan was being kept in, things were as normal as it gets and even better, actually.
Since the day Homelander found out about his son and this town, this whole operation stopped being hidden from him. And since Homelander is afraid to go against Vought and Edgar personally, this made it semi-official.
To get assigned to the operation, you needed the right age and the right look. To keep the illusion alive for Ryan, Vought needed entire families, parents, siblings, neighbors, teachers, and friends.
And besides the very generous pay that removed any risk of dying to a supe having a murder episode, it was even better if your partner was willing, you got the full marriage experience.
Well, the good and the bad.
Agent Miller and Agent Debra, or "Todd" and "Sarah" according to their Vought assignment files, were currently on their nightly block rotation. They walked hand-in-hand down the pristine sidewalk, looking like the perfect picture of suburban couple.
"If you touch my fucking personal kit in the bathroom again, I'm going to log it as a security breach," Debra said, her smile wide and bright for the cameras hidden in the neighborhood birdhouses. "I don't care if Vought didn't restock your shaving cream. Do not touch my stuff."
"It was a single squirt of face wash, Debra. We've been living in the same house for two years, we've even fucked a lot," Miller muttered back as he waved at a "neighbor" who was meticulously mowing a lawn that didn't even need cutting. "We're supposed to be a couple."
"You fucking Todd, it's Sarah, not Debra! Don't use my fucking agent name!"
"Oh, relax. The kid has no supe powers, and he is dumb as a brick."
"Shut your fucking mouth. Shut your fucking mouth right now."
They passed another "family", a mother pushing a stroller that contained a heavily weighted doll because the actual child actor was off-set for the day. The fake mother nodded at them, her eyes dead and exhausted behind her large designer sunglasses.
"Oh come on you even called me babe last week"
"I was practicing," Debra said as she offered a loving smile. "The handlers literally told us in the briefing that our domestic dialogue felt too stiff. I'm trying to make sure we don't get lasered by a nine-year-old because he notices his teachers act like awkward security guards. Did you forget he suspected us after his fucking brother showed him this is a fake town?"
"Pffft, please," Miller said. "Are you listening to yourself right now? Laser us in half? The only superpower that kid has is being fucking awkward and dumb. Just a couple of lies and the illusion was firmly back in place. It's not like we are babysitting fucking Vanguard h"
PLUCH.
CRACK.
Meanwhile, Ryan was sitting on the couch, watching his favorite show. Suddenly, he heard something. It was a sound he always heard better than most people. Even though it was faint, he was sure he heard something, he just didn't know what it was.
BANG
BANG
BANG
Suddenly, the sharp sound of gunfire rang out from the street outside, terrifying him and causing him to slam his hands over his ears to block out the loud noise.
"RYAN!"
His mother came running into the living room, her face pale. She grabbed him by the arm, hoisting him off the couch "Upstairs! Now!" she whispered, quickly recovering her bearings as she remembered to lower her voice.
They bursted into the master bedroom. Becca lunged straight into the walk-in closet, shoving rows of clothes aside to reveal the back wall. She pressed her palm firmly against a hidden part in the wood molding, activating a concealed biometric scanner.
With a hiss and a mechanical click, a section of the wall popped outward.
She pushed Ryan inside, then quickly reached back out to reorganize the clothes in front of the hideout, masking the entrance completely. Stepping in right behind him, she pulled the door closed. It was the reinforced hideout Vought had built deep into the structure of the house, made entirely of zinc and designed specifically for Homelander.
The heavy door slammed shut with a deafening thud, locking them into the safety of the bunker as the outside world cut to absolute silence.
In the absolute quietness of the upper floor, wet footsteps sounded as Erasmus walked slowly to bring his brother back while his father vented. He was probably imagining Edgar's face on the agents now.
The thing is, he could feel Ryan and Becca here. He could smell them, he could see the mind waves, but he couldn't see them. The mind waves were very bad at pinpointing locations. But the question is, did he ever give his baby brother a reason to be scared?
He doesn't think so.
"Baby brother, where are you? If we are going to play, hide-and-seek isn't my favorite, and it's not the time to play im here to get you home."
In the bunker, Becca placed her hand over her own mouth and the other over Ryan's mouth, while Ryan was genuinely confused. Was his big brother mean to him? Maybe. Would he ever hurt him? He doubted it. So why did they have to hide?
His mom had lied to him all these years. She hid him from his brother and his dad; she hid him in this fake town. If his brother hadn't shown him, he would have never known.
He placed his hands on his mother's hand and pushed it down.
"Ryan, sweetie, please no," Becca whispered.
"Erasmus?"
Becca hurriedly covered his mouth again, much to his annoyance, but this was already enough for Erasmus.
"Ready or not, here I come," Erasmus said as he walked to the closet and opened the door. But all he found was clothes. Pushing them away, there was nothing. Slowly pushing against the wood, he found metal behind it.
"Ryan, be careful. I'm coming in." Erasmus began tearing away the wood framing, splintering the closet wall until it littered the floor. Beneath the shattered wood, the solid, dull grey sheet of zinc stood fully exposed.
He drove his fist straight into the top right edge of the heavy metal gate.
CRACK.
The metal buckled instantly under the force. Erasmus buried his fingers into the freshly torn gap, and effortlessly ripped the entire door out of its tracks, tossing the heavy zinc slab onto the bedroom floor behind him.
The dim light of the bunker spilled out, revealing Becca cowering inside, and Ryan.
"Found you," Erasmus said as he looked down at Ryan and smiled.
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